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Time to cobble something together for christmas


DD_Arthur

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  • 3 weeks later...

Guess wot I got for my birthday?    Yes,  a horrible, snotty, sneezing cold, hurrah:blink:

However, that did mean I got three uninterrupted hours of daylight on my own at home to finally get on with this build:)

IMG-2194.jpg

No, not very neat at the moment but I just wanted to get it up and running.  Which it does!  and without having to phone my good m8 Bill Gates either.  I've also taken the precaution of carefully plugging my TrackIr  and MSFFB stick into  USB 2.0 ports so no problems there. 

Next step is to fit a couple of SSD's and then rip out the old HD and put it back in my old pc.  Then tidy up the cabling and put the very sexy smoked glass cover on.

 

 

 

 

There could be one snag though.  I bought a new EVGA semi modular power supply.  Stupidly, I've got a 650w one and just realised the one in my old machine is 750........doh!

Edit; oh yeah,  how about red led's?

IMG-2195.jpg

  or green or yellow or purple or all flashing at the same time:goodjob:

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650W should be enough Arthur - your maximum power requirement should be somewhere in the 550W mark so you've got some overhead.

Looks good though mate, I'll post some pics of my new build soon - it's not quite finished yet though - still tweaking.

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Yeah, I went through quite a decent power calculator and it came up with  @550w too.   I am going to have to take the cooler off and redo the paste.  It's running too hot under load.

I put a pea's worth of a blob on the centre of the cpu and then put the water cooler base on but - surprisingly - the way the cooler is bolted to the mobo strikes me as very Heath-Robinson.  

Also helps to have three hands so I think I'd better give it another go.

What should I remove the old paste with?  I've got nail varnish remover* and what do we think is the best way to apply it?

 

 

 

 

 

*No Painless, we're just not going there ok.......

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Having taken off most of the gunk with a paper towel, I then use an alcohol based TIM cleaner (but straight alcohol is fine) applied via a clean paper towel to complete the clean-up. Then a small blob of new gunk - about the size of a cooked grain of rice is enough - which (and this is optional) I then carefully spread out over the chip surface before plonking the water block back on and screwing if down (finger tight only!). I've never had to remount a cooler due to over temps using this method.

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OK,  took the cooler block off and cleaned it all up and re-applied some old thermal paste I had that wasn't made in China and hey presto!  Had it running a stress test in turbo mode for a couple of hours and nothing exceeded 70' and all six cores were within 2' of each other too so I'm happy with that.

Fitted my new SSD and got it recognised by Windows as E drive.   The plan is to fit a second SSD in the very near future and transfer the contents of my fairly full spinning HD onto that and it'll become the C drive.

Also moved DCS onto the SSD where it does indeed load up faster and.....thats where some awkwardness started. 

Now of to post in our DCS forum.

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  • 1. DDz Quorum
1 minute ago, DD_Arthur said:

OK,  took the cooler block off and cleaned it all up and re-applied some old thermal paste I had that wasn't made in China and hey presto!  Had it running a stress test in turbo mode for a couple of hours and nothing exceeded 70' and all six cores were within 2' of each other too so I'm happy with that.

Fitted my new SSD and got it recognised by Windows as E drive.   The plan is to fit a second SSD in the very near future and transfer the contents of my fairly full spinning HD onto that and it'll become the C drive.

Also moved DCS onto the SSD where it does indeed load up faster and.....thats where some awkwardness started. 

Now of to post in our DCS forum.

Just a tip: Be careful if you are going for a new Windows 10 install. Make sure that no other disks are connected when you do that, as Windows may just decide to have/keep/use a different disk as system boot disk than you might expect. Meaning after install, you remove one of the old disks, and presto, no windows no boot no more :)

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  • 1. DDz Quorum
1 hour ago, DD_Arthur said:

I'll bare that in mind FT.

  However, I was going to go the lazy dunce route and simply copy the complete contents of my old HD onto a new,  empty SSD, rename in C drive and then pull out the old HD.

Would this be unwise?

 

Unwise? Only if/when in the end it does not work.

One cannot really successfully copy the complete content of a running Windows disk to another disk... Oh wait, so, indeed, in the end this does not work :)

Alternative ways:

- Use Samsung Data migration software (will only run if/when it's a Samsung SSD for sure)

-Use a different operation system, like some Linux variant, and use its cloning tools ... 

-Use some other good quality cloning software that will run under Windows :) it can be done... just try and select a proper tool 

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Windows 10 likes an empty drive to install on to - no partitions or anything. From a purely personal point of view, If I'm installing Windows I use the setup program to delete everything on the SSD and start from scratch (bear in mind though that my Users folder and one or two other things reside on a physically separate device so I don't have to account for them in the initial setup).

And there's significant anecdotal evidence that having an SSD at over 50% capacity has a very detrimental effect on the speed of the device.

Oh, FWIW, my SSD is a SanDisk 240GB - It's not missed a beat.

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  • 1 month later...

After some slight re-arranging of my case I have installed an RTX2070.  It's one big mother of a card and everything is whizzing along splendidly at warp factor eight.

As an added bonus my cpu is running around five to six degrees cooler than before too.  At the moment it's on a very simple, lazy overclock to 4.1ghz.  From past experience I'm sure that with a couple of hours fiddling around I'll be able to get it to 4.5ghz with similar temps.

It's all plugged into my 27" screen running at 1920 x 1080.  Thus I seem to have a Ferrari engine bolted to a Hillman Minx* transmission.:rolleyes:

I was therefore thing about one of these;

https://www.benq.eu/en-uk/monitor/video-enjoyment/ew3270u.html

For a similar cost to the above monitor I could get the Samsung Odyssey +.  However, reviews are mixed and my plan is to sit it out for another year to await VR developments before taking the plunge.

Of course some,  er.....domestic sensitivity - in the spending department - must now prevail:blink:  However, a quick perusal of evilbay this evening shows some other, very interesting options at half the price.....

 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HTC-Vive-VR-Headset-including-all-original-components/143180340248

or

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/OCULUS-RIFT-TOUCH-VR-HEADSET-inc-2-Controllers-and-2-Sensors-Mint-Condition/372625700492

 Therefore I'm now seriously considering taking a punt on a used one at these prices  Advice, suggestions, slander, etc. all gratefully received........

 

 

 

 

*Google it.

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My feelings on VR are that the sensation of "being sat in the cockpit" are worth the loss of resolution, harder to pick up targets, harder to check six, and read text. If you buy a second hand set up and you dont like it you should be able to sell on without much, if any, loss. So really its a win/win :)

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If you do go VR this might interest you for DCS https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=218861

and it looks like he will do a version for flat screen users as well. Also VoiceAttack is very usful for things like toggle icons, open map. From what I have seen the F 14 start up needs comms for the groundcrew. So if you set VA up all you will need to do is talk to the ground crew so they will do their thing. :)

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  • 2 weeks later...

I mean....where do you start?:startle: 

 Apart from getting it going I've done no fine tuning or anything. I've still got the blue ring down at my feet. It's still rough and ready.

I'm still going through the 'Blade Runner' moment. 

 

I'm flying a Spitfire.  The cockpit is.....just right.

  It's not too big - like a P47, where it seems there's room for another one standing. It's not too tight, like the FW190D.  Now that really is one steel and glass coffin!

 I look down through the perspex at the sweep of the wings and below the trailing edge I can see the earth between racing clouds. 

Ahead and to my left a distant smudge is slowly resolving into a Heinkel.  It gets bigger and bigger and it's round and fat.  The sun twinkles on it.

 It's big.  I slide my little Spitfire in behind it.

 I open fire and big chunks start to fall off. Lots of smoke just above my mirror.  I sit inside my cockpit and my aircraft is alive. 

 I fire again and can't see too much now because of the smoke coming out of it but yes, it's on fire. Really on fire. 

This big, fat aeroplane which I'm alongside of is on fire and the crew are crawling out and their chutes are opening.  The tail is riddled by bullet holes.

 I have to jink out of the way as the Heinkel drops a wing and lurches towards me.

It goes under me and I loose it.   It's gone.  I hurt something in my neck looking for it.

   I've managed to put my 'plane in a steep dive.

The ground starts to come up.  No, I really don't want to do that.  I REALLY don't want to do that!

I feel some....unease,  as the the ground comes rapidly up into my face.  And it's over and I think I'll take this thing off......

I'm sweating. 

 

 

 

  

 

 

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